On the local constancy of regularized superdeterminants along special families of differential operators

Abstract

We consider the flat-regularized determinant of families of operators of the form $D_\tau=[\delta_\tau,d_\nabla]$, where $\tau\to\delta_\tau$ are families of degree $-1$ maps in the twisted de Rham complex $\left(\Omega^\bullet(M,E),d_\nabla\right)$ generalizing the (twisted) Hodge codifferential. We show that under suitable assumptions, both geometrical and analytical in nature, the flat-regularized determinant of $D_\tau$, restricted to the subspace $\mathrm{im}(\delta_\tau)$, is constant in $\tau$. The general result we present implies both local constancy of the Ray--Singer torsion and of the value at zero of the Ruelle zeta function for a contact Anosov flow, upon choosing $\delta_\tau = \delta_{g_\tau}$, the Hodge codifferential for a family of metrics, and $\delta_\tau=\iota_{X_\tau}$, the contraction along a family of (regular, contact) Anosov vector fields, respectively.